The death cult has re-entered the desert city nine months after losing it.

ISIS – otherwise known as Daesh – ruled the ruins for 10 months before it was recaptured by government forces in March.

But the jihadists launched a surprise offensive earlier this week and it now seems they have regained control.

ISIS on the run! With the fall of Mosul, is the death cult in retreat?

Whike ISIS have been driven from Mosul, the fight against Islamic State continues.

1 / 162

Getty Images

A member of Free Syrian Army uses truck mounted gun as the FSA members advance to al-Bab town of Aleppo during the "Operation Euphrates Shield" in Aleppo.

“ISIS entered Palmyra on Saturday”

Rami Abdel Rahman

"ISIS entered Palmyra on Saturday and now occupies its north-west," said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"There is also fighting with the army in the city centre," he added.

The sick jihadis destroyed a number of monuments during their previous occupation.

Two 2,000-year-old temples, an arch and funerary towers were left in ruins – claiming such structures are offensive to Islam.

A statement by the cult's news agency Amaq said the group had taken the strategic Jabal al Tar and Jabal Antara mountains that overlook the city in some of the heaviest fighting since the group lost the city.

The militants were pushing towards the T4 airbase, one of Syria's major military bases, near Palmyra city and which Russian forces have been using to support the Syrian army.